Monday, June 21, 2010

Rule of threes

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

The Rule of Threes

It happened again. I ran out of propane....on Easter! The turkey was in the wood cook stove, so that was not a big deal, but I had wanted to put the extra stuffing and rolls in the propane oven. I lit the oven and then - poof- the flame blew out! AARG. But in reality, being out of propane is nothing more than a slight inconvenience. You see, we try to operate on "The Rule of Threes". We attempt to have three ways to do just about anything. We have a back-up for our back-up! We have a propane cook stove, but also an electric tea kettle and microwave, and of course, the wood cook stove. We can cook three different ways. If one doesn't work, we have a back-up. Say we don't have enough battery power to run the electric kettle - we just pop the kettle on the gas stove. Out of gas too? Not a big deal, there is the wood stove.

The Hobbes Electric Kettle...

On the Propane Stove....

And the ever present Wood Cook Stove....

We try to employ the Rule of Threes in other areas of our lives as well, with varying degrees of success. Our power system is only operating on the Rule of Two. We have solar panels and a generator back-up. We did have a wind turbine, but one of the guy wires broke so we took it down. The turbine only put out about 17 amps max, and in heavy wind, put the brakes on and produced nothing. We would like to replace it with a much larger turbine and also build a battery booster. I guess that would be The Rule of Fours! Talk about a feeling of security. If one system fails, there is always another way.

I am constantly looking at ways to improve all of your systems, be they food storage, laundry or organizing our days. But the one true constant is The Rule of Threes.

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About Me

I am a christian, conservative, survival minded, homeschooling,off-grid, independent, home-birthing, Proverbs 31, Titus 2 minded 40 year old woman. I live with my husband and five children in our solar/generator powered shop on 30 acres. We are homestead types who try to do as much as we can ourselves, but understand the importance of community.